


on the one side is before and on the other side is after

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Magic-Users, Mythology - Freeform, Pack Dynamics, Trickster!Napoleon, Werewolf!Illya, Werewolves, Witch!Gaby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-04-24 22:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4937272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em> Fear and flee the wolf; for, worst of all, the wolf may be more than he seems. </em> —The Company of Wolves, Angela Carter</p>
<p>There are two kinds of wolves in Russia—the kind that run on four legs and the kind that walk on two and Illya Kuryakin is one of the men who can do both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sleep with fists closed and shoot straight

_Fear and flee the wolf; for, worst of all, the wolf may be more than he seems._ — _The Company of Wolves,_ Angela Carter

* * *

 There are two kinds of wolves in Russia—the kind that run on four legs and the kind that walk on two and Illya Kuryakin is one of the men who can do both. They all thought the taint came from his father, his father that tried outrunning them, but they were wrong. Illya’s wolf blood comes from his mother, his mother who clawed their way to survival by whatever means necessary and bore no shame for it.  Marya Kuryakin didn’t kiss her son good-bye when he left to serve his country, instead she whispered in his ear, “ _Be strong, my_ volchonok _”_ and let him go.

And if maybe Illya’s teeth were sharper, just a tad more bared during training, if his voice was closer to a growl than the others, it grew to be ignored, accepted. Mostly.

Illya’s under strict orders from his superiors to never change shape in public—only in the wilderness, where there’s no witnesses to bring the news back. But as he sprints in through East Germany, chasing down his target (two of them), he can feel his claws flex in his fingers, his stride lengthen, and high above his head, a waxing gibbous is singing in his veins. The scent in his nostrils is making his instincts howl for a _hunt,_ not some chase.  The American smells like gunpowder and cologne, expensive and sharp, and his suit is probably the finest Italian wool.  The chop shop girl smells like adrenaline and car oil, grease and fear, traces of cheap smelling soap underneath.

Something else lies beneath the scents, something warm and thrumming. _Magic_ , he realizes. Both of them are magic-users. He can’t guess what kind, that’s not his forte.

 The car roars ahead of him and he misses it by inches. If the moon was full and he had grabbed it, he would’ve stopped in its tracks. But the trunk cover comes off in his hands and he bites back the urge to howl his frustration. After the chase ends (disastrously), he paces back and forth once he’s pulled out of the minefield, growling low in his throat. The police officers eye him nervously.

His superiors are silent, unexpressive when he makes his report. He can smell shifting intention in the air, but he can’t guess the direction in which they’re turning.

Partnering up with his targets wasn’t it.

* * *

Not to brag or anything, but Napoleon is _damn good_ at what he does. He’s the son of a con man and a witch, trickery and an understanding of human nature are in his _blood._ His mother taught him how to catch words on the wind, follow its advice; his father showed him how to smile brightly and use quick and clever hands to lift valuables neatly and unseen. His talents are misdirection and illusions, what his mother called in a fondly exasperated voice, _glamour_ and an ability to sense another person’s gifts or beings no matter how they’re disguised _._ Oh, Sanders won’t actually _say_ it, of course—no one will. But Napoleon can catch a glimpse of claws underneath the Red Peril’s fingers, a flash of a canine longer than normal.  A slight lope to his walk. His presence thrums like a wolf’s howl on a cold night.

He knows the wolf’s people when he sees them.

Gaby can tell too. She’s coiled tense when Illya gets closer to her, watching him through narrowed eyes. Metalworking witches like her have some immunity to fey; their very presence can be like a length of cold wrought iron. But all the presence in the world doesn’t do much good if he decides to use his teeth and Napoleon _is_ ready to step in and be her cover if necessary.  

He’s not sure it is yet. Gaby is _tiny_ compared to Illya, but she’s not diminished, never dwarfed. She’s most certainly not intimidated by him, if the way she’s tilting her head back to glare at him is any indication. And Illya is looking at her like he’s not sure whether to curl up at her feet or snarl at her.

It’s entertaining, to say the least. But Napoleon makes sure his silver ring is in the inside pocket of his jacket, just to be safe.

* * *

Gaby has no intention of becoming yet _another_ girl who falls for a wolf. The Grimm brothers wrote about enough of those and she’s not about to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors.

He hasn’t hurt her, though. He _could,_ but he hasn’t. Gaby keeps angrily telling herself that any moment he could do it, and that she needs to be _ready_ for it, but even when she provokes him, _tackles_ him, wrestles him to the ground, he just…lets her. He could snap her with one hand, she knows claws lurk beneath his nails and his teeth could tear her like so much ribbon.

But his hands are huge and gentle on her waist; he lifts her like a child and already bristles in defense of her. And honestly—no one who promises so fervently to keep her safe is not merely teeth and instinct.

Most fey like him avoid her like she’s the plague. Witches who work iron always have a bit of its presence lingering about their person and it’s never comfortable for fey to get too close. Illya either isn’t affected or he does feel the pain after all and touches her like she might break because of it. Gaby doesn’t know which to hope for.  

The girl in the red cloak didn’t see through the disguise until it was too late. Or maybe, Gaby wonders now, she knew all along and didn’t fear the wolf enough to take care.

She doesn’t fear Illya. If that makes her another foolish girl who walked into a wolf’s paws without thought or a terrible agent, she doesn’t know that either. But the job is set before her now and there’s no turning back from it.

* * *

His mother once told him why she’d stayed with his father even after the secret police were pounding on their door, even as their stability and safety was stripped away, why she sent money for bribes to make sure he was at least fed in the gulag, never flinched or turned away when his shame was flung in their faces.

_He was mine,_ Marya Kuryakin said simply. _He was my_ pack, _my mate, my beta_. _Once your pack chooses you, you cannot turn away from them._

Illya always thought (hoped) he would find that kind of undying loyalty within service to his country, from his superiors and peers. It’s a terrible and bitter irony that instead, it’s the two people who should be his enemies.

Napoleon is his beta, his second. The one Illya trusts to do what’s necessary, to watch his back and not put silver in it, to not _fear_ him, flinch away from his teeth or claws. He’s not sure if Gaby is his _mate_ yet. The beginnings of a bond are there, the fact he’d kneel at her feet and bare his throat for her is painfully obvious.  He’d kill to protect her, knows he would like he knows the moon’s song and the scent of a hunt. She’s the full moon at the highest point at the sky, the one that draws him in and he’d give her anything she asked for, anything at all.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain to them that they’re his _pack_ now and that bond outweighs any loyalty to country or agency.

But maybe he doesn’t have to. They run through different missions and goals, Napoleon says, “Peril, fetch” when they need to track a target down and Gaby lays a hand on his twitching hand and squeezes it tightly, never cares about the claws that linger under his nails.

_The pack chooses you_ , his mother told him and nothing in him regrets it.


	2. the criminial, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught

_For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack_.— _The Jungle Book,_ Rudyard Kipling

* * *

 

“So,” drawls Napoleon one night in Chicago, one of his many haunts, “what’s the plan this time, Lassie?”

“To drop you down a well,” Illya retorts, but without much heat. “ _I_ am not pulling you out.”

Gaby, tinkering with the undercarriage of the cherry red Dodge Charger Napoleon “borrowed” from one of their marks, rolls her eyes. Napoleon has not yet been convinced of the dubious wisdom of his persistent canine jokes, though it’s a testament of how long Illya’s been with them that now, he only rolls his eyes instead of growling or showing his teeth.

Illya does not call himself a werewolf. She can understand why. People get nervous when you start saying things like _lycanthropy_ or _werewolf._ It tends to bring up images of Lon Cheney in _The Wolf Man_.He is the wolf’s people, is the most he will say about it. Once he mentioned his mother said her people called themselves _the hounds of God. For we will pursue our quarry to the gates of hell,_ she told a young Illya.

 _Suddenly so much about you becomes clear,_ Napoleon had remarked and Illya let his lips peel back from his teeth in a gesture too sharp to be called a smile. _Now you know,_ he’d agreed.

She’s never seen Illya in full wolf form. Neither has Napoleon. Judging by Illya’s reaction when they brought it up, it was sort of like asking if they could spit on the graves of his ancestors. But Napoleon told her that Illya has been trained from the beginning of his time at the KGB to never shape change with others around. _Peril’s been…_ strongly _discouraged from the notion of ever letting someone see him as he truly is,_ Napoleon had said, with the slightest of shrugs.

 _Discouraged?_ Gaby asked, with feigned coolness. She has visions in her head of silver and wolfsbane, pain inflicted on a young man with claws in the place of nails, struggling to force something wild and untamable into a cage of cool intent and logic. Fey creatures do not hold up well among regimes.

 _He’s been trained to suppress his instincts,_ is the most Napoleon allows. _But he_ is _sensitive about it. Tread lightly, Gaby._   

_Is that the best piece of advice you have to offer?_

_Alright, tread_ very  _lightly._

Now she slides out from under the car, grabbing the nearest rag to clean her hands on. “Napoleon, not that I’m complaining about the car, but won’t Mr. Weston notice we have it when we, I don’t know, try to break into his office later?”

Napoleon waves an elegantly airy hand. “My dear witch, our Mr. Weston has so many cars he’ll scarcely notice this one missing. If anything, he’ll compliment us on our good taste.”

Mr. Weston is a business man with various shady connections—the reason they’ve been called in about it is because Napoleon’s superiors suspect him of double dealing (or is it _triple_ dealing?) with other mobsters from Russia _and_ Britain. Naturally, their respective intelligence agencies want him neatly, quietly taken care of. _So no one has an advantage over the other,_ Gaby thinks cynically. She gets up, sits on the Charger’s hood. “How are we getting in?” she asks.                              

Illya pulls out blueprints, supplied by U.N.C.L.E.  “Smuggler’s tunnels,” he says. “Used during your Prohibition.”

“How very swashbuckling of us,” Napoleon says with a grin.

 _Swashbuckling_ is not the word Gaby would use to describe the night. They get in, get shot at, Gaby has to sit someone over the head with a wrench, and Illya lets out the most bone-chilling howl she’s ever heard. Gaby’s not sure if Napoleon’s superiors know that he’s not good at direct confrontations, or they know and expect him to do it anyways (probably the latter). She watches as Napoleon influences a man pursuing them to get in the way of oncoming car, and when Napoleon turns away before the impact, his face is gray and lined. Illya’s hands are shaking as they manage to get back to the relative security of the safe house, claws slipping in and out of his nails. Already his lips are almost nonexistent, pulled back over his teeth, showing sharp canines.

Napoleon shoots Gaby a look and she takes her cue. She quietly steps in front of Illya, takes his face between her hands. His face is desperate, lost, already his hands cupping the backs of her legs, trying as hard as he can not to hold too tightly.  His pupils are huge, black swallowing up the blue. “Look at me,” she commands gently. “It’s alright.  We’re back, we’re safe, it’s alright. We’re alright.”

His fingers flex on her legs, once. She does not think about the faintest prick of sensation through the material of her trousers, the fact he could shred them like so much tissue paper. His shoulders heave under her hand and from somewhere behind her, she can hear Napoleon quietly opening cabinets, something being poured into glasses. Slowly, slowly, Illya’s pupils recede and his grip on her legs relaxes. His forehead falls to rest against her collarbone. Gaby lets her hands drift up into his hair, running gentle, careful nails across his scalp. He shudders under her hands, but doesn’t pull away.

“Okay?” she asks softly and he nods against her.

“Closer to a full moon,” he mutters against her skin. “It is…difficult. Especially after action.”

Gaby nods, keeps running her hands through his hair. When he finally straightens, he turns up a face of such weary blindness and resignation something clenches in her chest hard and tight as a fist. 

Illya does not hate the wolf part of him. She knows that he doesn’t. But the longer he’s with them, the more he becomes accustomed to not keeping it under the strict control that his superiors demand.  And his superiors already used silver and wolfsbane to restrain him before. 

Gaby hates them. Not just because of politics or country, or because they caused her to grow up in a police state, made her live in fear for most of her life, oppressed her people, but on behalf of Illya, because he won’t. Someone has to, for what they do to him and he won’t do it, so Gaby does with all the pent up fury and resentment in her heart. 

Regardless of Napoleon’s presence, she bends her head and presses her forehead to his, lets their breath mingle. Close touches like this are the quickest and surest way to calm Illya before one of his episodes begin, the way back from wolfish inclinations. His hands don’t move from where they are and slow, slow, slow, the tension begins to bleed out from him.

Napoleon sets down two glasses of scotch on the rocks on the table (because Illya still won’t drink while he’s on a mission) and Gaby straightens up and removes her hands from his head, accepts the glass. Illya’s hands fall to his sides, his eyes shut as he breathes deeply. His hands look normal, there is no shadows straining to be let free of his skin.

“Well,” Napoleon says with a sigh, nursing his scotch as Gaby simply knocks hers back, “did _anything_ about tonight count as a success?”

“I planted the bug in his office,” Gaby offers, perching on the edge of the table. “And another tracking device on one of his cars. The one we _didn’t_ steal.”

“His men are ill-trained,” Illya says, now more focused.  “None of them are fey.”

“Small mercies,” Napoleon says, holding the cold glass to his temple as if to ward off a headache. “Pick up anything interesting Gaby?”

“He’s got no talent himself,” Gaby reports. “No fey amongst his staff either.”

They agree to do more reconnaissance tomorrow.  Napoleon slips soundless off into the night (to find someone else’s bed to sleep in no doubt) and Gaby fixes herself one more drink before getting ready for bed. Illya takes a shower and steps out of the bathroom, damp and smelling like bay leaves.  

There are two bedrooms in the small apartment they’re borrowing for the mission (an associate of Waverly’s or an old flame of Napoleon’s, she’s not sure which) and presumably, since Napoleon makes his accommodations elsewhere, she would sleep in one and Illya in the other. She hasn’t since the first night.

The first night, she awoke to the sound of Illya thrashing about in the bed, restless. Gaby knows little about werewolves ( _the wolf’s people_ ) but she knows they are not solitary beings. They’re accustomed to traveling together in packs, usually in large families. Illya probably hasn’t had that for _years_. So she got up from her own bed, went over and lay down beside him, on top of the covers, and pressed herself to his back. His restless thrashing stopped. She woke up the next morning, tucked under the covers, Illya’s side of the bed empty. _Honestly,_ she thought, with a shake of the head.

That night though, he approached her so cautiously as if he expected _her_ to bite and said carefully, “I seem to— sleep better with—someone close by” and immediately stopped there, as if afraid to ask further.

Careful to keep pragmatic expression, Gaby shrugged. “I can stay there, if it helps you.”

He nodded; his own face carefully expressionless. “Yes. It would.”

So tonight, Gaby simply pulls back the covers and gets in, letting him join her at his own pace. He always moves so slowly, as if trying to give her every possible opportunity to leave the bed before he gets in. When he finally gets into bed, Gaby curls up beside him, presses her face to his shoulder. One wide, strong arm wraps around her slowly, and Illya’s breathing eases.

In his sleep, he turns and presses his front to her back, like spoons in a drawer. His arm wraps around her waist, his face pressed to the place where her back and neck connects.  She wakes up completely wrapped up in him, a wall between her and the outside world and everything else it encompasses. The times she wakes up in the night to the two of them entwined like ivy around a pole, she closes her eyes and pretends that it’s feasible for the two of them to exist like this indefinitely.

When he is awake, he touches her like she is glass and might break if he presses too hard. In his sleep, he holds her close enough for their heartbeats to fall into rhythm. In her sleep, Gaby dreams of running endlessly on cold moonlit night, a great black wolf by her side and guards her from the nightmares. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> behold! ACTUAL DIALOGUE and some vague semblance of plot. I'm on a roll.


	3. what is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?

_A hungry wolf can tear anything. A hungry wolf can break spells_.—Russian proverb

* * *

 Illya cannot hold off Oleg forever.

“Your country is waiting for you,” he growls at Illya over a protected line, during another mission. He is not the wolf’s people, but he understands more about them than the others do.  It was due to his recommendation that the KGB was even willing to take on Illya. “It was not necessary for you to be a part of this organization.”

“My country _sent_ me here,” Illya says, something he never would have even conceived of some time ago. “Have I been a less than exemplary agent?”

Oleg makes an impatient sound but does not deny it. “The Kremlin is uneasy with your new…associations.”

To believe in God is against the Party, but Illya sends up a silent thank you to whatever saint or angel is watching over his burgeoning pack. The KGB has not yet uncovered the full extent of his ties to Solo or Gaby.  “Finish your assignment,” Oleg commands. “And make your report. We will find other ways to occupy you when you return.”

Illya hangs up without a good-bye or acknowledgment.  He scrubs one hand across his face. The wolf part of him howls to _run, run, run_ , or better yet, tear out Oleg’s throat for daring to suggest taking apart Illya’s pack. _Mine,_ it growls inside his heart, teeth exposed and glistening. _Mine to protect, mine to stay with, mine and mine alone._ Thoughts Illya never would’ve entertained before now.

“Trouble at home Baskerville?” asks Solo lightly from behind him. No telling how much he overhead. It’s only a small mercy that Gaby is out, probably heckling the mechanic from MI6 as he tries to fix their newest acquisition of a car.

“I am almost starting to miss ‘Peril,’” says Illya grimly.

Napoleon shrugs. “I have a pack of other names, never fear.”

Illya glowers at him, wondering for the hundredth time why fate (or God, or whatever is in control of the universe) has chosen for him this utterly annoying, completely infuriating man for a second.  And the worst of it is, Illya thinks pessimistically, there literally couldn’t be anyone else.

Napoleon idly adjusts his watch, fiddling with the controls, which immediately puts Illya on his guard. Solo only fidgets with things when he’s about to honest with someone, the complete opposite of a typical liar’s tell. It deeply saddens Illya to realize that he’s been around Solo long enough to even _know_ that.

“You know that politics are not my forte,” Napoleon says, without looking up. “And truthfully, regardless of what my superiors would have me do or believe, what goes on behind the Iron Curtain is actually of little interest to me,” he adds, now moving on to his cufflinks. “So now that you know that—and it shouldn’t surprise you—listen to me. Get out while you still can.”

If Solo was not his second, Illya would’ve ripped his throat out for such a suggestion. As it is, he bristles. “Unlike you, I am loyal to my country.” The words don’t have the same ferocious sincerity they used to, and he _knows_ Solo can tell. 

But Solo merely shrugs, not commenting on nuances in tone. “That’s not in doubt, Peril. It’s never _been_ in doubt. The question you need to ask yourself is how loyal are they to _you_? How long will it be before they decide your usefulness has run its course?”

A wolf is not over given to paying attention to the future. A wolf only cares about the present, _now,_ where the next meal will come from, where the hunt will take them next, where their mate is. Illya cannot afford to do that and he knows it. Solo knows it too, and that’s why he’s even saying as much now.

“The Iron Curtain is going to come down eventually,” says Napoleon softly, with the inexorable patience of someone who knows all the angles and possibilities. “I’m a lousy seer, but I _do_ know that much. You need to take into account what’s going to happen to you when it does.”

Tricksters like Napoleon can play the long game. Illya cannot, it’s not what he’s meant for.

“I will keep it under advisement,” is the most he says, the most he trusts himself with. And Solo, like the all-knowing bastard he is, simply shrugs again in acknowledgment. 

“Just so you know,” he replies and leaves Illya to his thoughts.

* * *

Gaby can sense Illya’s tension before they even leave for the next phase of the mission and it’s a near disaster from the start. That is to say, nothing goes wrong—but they miss it by inches. That kind of margin for error is very, very bad for spies who want to stay _alive_. She doesn’t miss her cues. Neither does Napoleon. Illya doesn’t. But all three of them are coiled tense by the time they make it back to the hotel room Gaby has to herself (no posing as _anyone’s_ wife or fiancé this time around), almost as bad as it was when they were first starting out as a team, fumbling around each other trying to make their talents work together.

For once, she does not immediately head straight for the collection of alcohol and glasses. She needs a clear head for this one. “So,” she says, kicking off her shoes carelessly, ignoring Illya’s frown and Solo’s wince at three-thousand dollar heels strewn helter-skelter across the floor, “what _exactly_ is each of your problems tonight?”

Solo attempts to look politely, blankly confused, and Illya doesn’t even bother changing his features, _honestly,_ try to look a little more intimidated when she’s about to rip them a new one boys.

“I didn’t see the problem,” Solo says blandly. “We managed fairly alright.”

For a second, Gaby is almost sorry she kicked off her shoes. She would’ve needed the extra height so she could (almost) look Solo in the eye when she starts yelling. “ _Beginners_ can be ‘fairly alright,’” she raps out. “ _Trainees_ can be ‘fairly alright.’ _Civilians_ might be and can be ‘ _fairly alright_ ’ but _we can’t_. We made mistakes tonight, sloppy, careless, _rushed_ mistakes that we can’t afford to repeat. Whatever the hell’s going in your head, _clear it out._ Or the next time we go out and do this, we might all end up _dead_.” 

Solo always looks blankly and politely bored whenever he gets a verbal lashing. Illya schools his face to utter blankness, no boredom or politeness to be seen and Gaby isn’t sure which one makes her want to kick them both in the shins more. She doesn’t back down, doesn’t flinch. Calls up all the iron in her soul and puts it in her spine. “Understood?” she demands of them again.

It is Illya who breaks the charged silence. “My apologies,” he says formally.  “I let my distraction tonight affect the rest of us. It will not happen again.”

Somehow, this does not make Gaby feel any better.

* * *

It’s a source of personal frustration and irritation to Gaby to realize that she too, cannot sleep without the presence of someone else. She blames Illya. Illya and his stupid, huge, warm like a furnace body, big calloused hands settling the skin of her stomach where her shirt has ridden up in her sleep, strong arms around her waist, and his back between her and the door. The smell of good cologne, trees and gunpowder that always clings to his shirts regardless of where they’ve been stationed.

Impatient and annoyed at herself, she kicks off the covers and wanders out on the balcony, taking a bottle and glass with her. Maybe she’ll fall off and won’t have to endure this ridiculous mission any longer, she thinks morbidly and dismisses the idea. As if it would help.

A generous helping of vodka does not help and Gaby sourly wonders why she is surprised. She lets the drink dangle from one hand as she rests her arm on the railing and leans her head on it. If nothing else, the view into the courtyard and the city goes a long way to soothing her restless discontent. The moonlight and blue dim light from the pool below make her dreamily think of undine, water spirits her foster father always told her to look out for. 

A door opens on the balcony below and Gaby peers over the railing to see Illya’s face looking back up at her, concern and exasperation on his face in equal measures. She smiles wickedly and raises her free arm (the one with the glass in it) in a lazy salute.

“That doesn’t look very safe,” he calls up to her softly and Gaby simply rolls her eyes.

“Since when is anything we do _safe_?” She looks down at him, maybe leans a bit further over the railing than she really should. She smiles again, the majority of her earlier irritation soothed under the influence of vodka. “Are you going to stop me or join me?” she asks, not really believing he’ll _do_ anything.

Illya’s eyebrows go up, just a bit. Then before Gaby register what he’s doing, he seems to rise to his full height and one long arm reaches up to grab the bottom of her balcony railing. Startled, Gaby takes a step back as Illya seems to effortlessly lift himself up onto her railing, swinging one long leg over and then the other. He perches easily in front of her, balanced precariously perfect. Gaby is so startled the glass escapes her fingers and Illya catches it before it can hit the floor and shatter. Despite her surprise, Gaby applauds. “Nicely done. You ever think of joining the Russian circus?”

Illya does not give her glass back. “I don’t like living on trains.”

“And yet you’re a spy,” Gaby retorts. She extends a hand imperiously. “Give me my drink back please.”

Illya pauses, just for a second, and then holds it out as if he means to hand it to her. Before she can retrieve it, at the last second, he pulls it away and downs the whole glass himself. The smile lingering on the corners of his mouth is almost— _sly_.

Gaby lets out a gasp of outrage, despite something hot and eager springing up inside her at this unexpected playfulness. “You—you—you _Saumensch,”_ she splutters, reverting to childish insults she picked up from one of her friends on the streets.

Caught off guard at this, Illya peers at her. “I’m sorry, I do _what_ to pigs?”

“You heard me,” Gaby retorts, flushing, with embarrassment or alcohol— _not_ desire. Most _empathetically_ not. “You bastard, I hadn’t even finished that glass.” She picks up the bottle from where she left it on the floor and defiantly takes a swig from the bottle itself—since he hasn’t given her the tumbler back.

He doesn’t stop her this time—wise man—but once she lowers it from her lips, he asks softly, “Why are you awake, Gaby?”

The sound of his voice saying her name makes goosebumps break out all over her skin. She tells herself it’s the breeze. “Couldn’t sleep,” she says as carelessly as she can. “I thought the night air would help. You?”

He shrugs. “The same, more or less.” He eyes her now, a look she recognizes. It’s the same one he uses when he’s trying a new strategy in chess. “I seem to sleep better with company.”

If Solo had said something like that, she would’ve rolled her eyes, scoffed. Told him he can just _keep_ sleeping poorly.  But Illya says it like he’s offering a small piece of himself to her, and lets her do with it what she will and will take anything she gives in return.

The trouble with werewolves, Gaby thinks, is that none of them can ever do anything halfheartedly.

She lifts her chin, ignoring the fact that even half-seated, his head clears hers by a few good inches. “I’ll make you a bargain,” she says. The vodka gives her the same reckless, burning courage that took her to tackle a full-grown, KGB-trained werewolf. “I’ll stop drinking if you stay.”

He puts his head to one side, considering her offer. “Very well,” he says softly. “I’ll stay.”

The vodka bottle is left out on the balcony and Gaby collapses into her bed, Illya’s warmth and weight like a blanket against her back. She awakes in the morning facing him, awake and very much alert, studying her face intently.

Gaby isn’t frightened to be under the wolf’s gaze. In the lazy golden sunlight, she smiles drowsily and throws one leg over his hip, presses herself closer to him, savors the way they fit.

Illya’s breathing catches against her hair. She is soft and warm and smells like a willing woman, which she _definitely_ is, if the leg curling over his hip is any indication. “We have to meet Solo for briefing,” he murmurs, even as his hands sweep up the line of her back, span the width of it like fans.

“Don’t ruin the moment,” she says into his neck, sighing into his skin. It makes his fingers flex, his claws resisting the urge to rend the thin silk of her sleeping shirt and touch the warm, smooth skin beneath. Another nuzzle, another sigh.

“I want you in my bed tomorrow night,” she tells him, utterly matter-of-fact. “And the night after that and the night after that, and _every night after_. Is that alright with you?”

The wolf inside his chest rumbles in satisfaction, wants to pin her to the bed and get his teeth in her, mark her, _claim_ her. His mate, his full moon.

The wolf _wants._ The wolf is tired of denial, tired of turning away from his mate. The wolf wants her in every way imaginable and he knows she wants him too. Witches are selfish, he knows, they keep what is _theirs_. She meets and matches him in that.  

The man Illya presses his face into the curve of her neck, satisfies himself with the slightest of nips to the place where her pulse beats, where it goes faster under his teeth and the smell of desire is so thick he could drown in it.

“It is alright with me,” he assures her.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's pretend Gaby and Liesel Meminger were best friends at some point, you will pry this headcanon out of my _cold dead hands_.


	4. for you alone I will be weak

_For who could ever learn to love a beast?—Beauty and the Beast,_ Disney.

* * *

 

At some point after this disaster is over, Napoleon’s going to find out who thought it was a great idea to kidnap the _metalworking witch_ and bring her in an abandoned _steel mill_ and he’s going to laugh and laugh and laugh. After though. Not right now. Not when Illya looks like his humanity is hanging on by the slimmest of threads.

Napoleon is, of course, totally aware that in the past few missions, countries, hours, _months_ , Gaby and Illya have become something more to each than merely working partners. And though they’ve been _exceptionally_ discreet about it, Napoleon knows and so does Waverly. Working under that assumption, so do Illya’s superiors.

Who are, at best, deeply displeased at the notion.

So when Gaby is taken by a Russian mobster (or is it government agent, Napoleon can never tell the difference), the KGB had flatly refused to offer any assistance in getting her back.

Napoleon wonders if they’re _deliberately_ trying to make Illya defect.

To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise him.  This seems like the torturous kind of choice they would present, in order to test someone’s loyalty. But what the KGB _doesn’t_ know is that Gaby is the closest thing Illya has to a mate. And even without that, Illya would go to hell and back for Gaby (and so would Napoleon really, though he would strongly prefer _not_ to).

So now, he calmly puts on his silencer, adjusts his suit and goes out, weaving spells around them under his breath as he walks. Illya prowls by his side, teeth bared and claws slipping in and out of sight.

“She’s going to be fine,” Napoleon says, mostly because he just needs to _say_ something, and he can put enough power in the words to willthem to be true.  “It’s Gaby we’re talking about. She’ll probably have the whole place down around their ears by the time we get there.”

Illya doesn’t seem to register the words, but tilts his head back to the night sky as if searching for something. Napoleon follows his gaze.

The full moon is rising, bright and golden yellow, a harvest moon, the stuff of scary stories and children’s tales. And Illya is looking less and less human by the second.

Napoleon makes a decision.

“Would it be easier to find her if you shifted?” he asks calmly, like he’s asking for the opinion on this suit or that, the pattern of a tie.

Illya’s pupils have almost swallowed up the blue, but he nods, focuses. “Easier,” he says, closer to a growl than Napoleon’s heard in months. “Could smell her from here. Scare them.”

Napoleon nods, silently strengthening the wards of protection he’s laid around them both, not quite up to his mother’s exacting standards, but they’ll suffice. “Then maybe you should get on with it.”

It takes a second for Illya to realize what Napoleon is essentially giving him permission to do and then despite his apparent tension, something in his stance is…well, for lack of a better word, unleashed. He doesn’t do the Hollywood move of throwing his head back to howl, his shoulders don’t become hunched and monstrous. There is no cracking or groaning of joints or pained snarls.

There is a blur as the light of the full moon falls on them and four feet pace where there were once two.

Napoleon feels for a silver ring, just in case.

* * *

Metal and iron and steel are in Gaby’s blood, her spine and soul, so despite the glowering of the guards, the pacing of her captors, and the ropes cutting into the skin of her wrists, it’s a fairly easy thing to call up the guts and belly of the old steel mill and set it on them. The whole compound creaks and groans like a living thing, and Gaby calls up the sharpest of edges on the pole she’s tied to.

Working metal has its limits but here, in her fury and focus, Gaby wreaks havoc.

Outside she can hear the howling. They try to use their guns and Gaby makes them misfire. Bullets scatter like broken glass. She rises to her feet, arms and hands free. The one in charge, a remarkably plain faced man, spins to face her, fury contorting him. A gun is pointed at her chest and she raises her hands, already prepared to redirect the bullet.

A huge shadow looms out of the darkness like humanity’s oldest nightmare and springs at him, teeth shining.

A wolf the size of a _horse_ goes for the man’s throat, snarling in rage. In her witch’s sight, he gleams with protective sigils, work she recognizes— _Napoleon._ And if he’s here, then the wolf must be—

Gaby dives for the first forgotten gun she sees and shoots the remaining stragglers. The wolf turns from his prey and goes for the others, who hadn’t had the sense to run when they saw him, and Gaby doesn’t look at the remains, she does _not,_ not at the torn out throats or the blood on the wolf’s teeth. Footsteps behind her make her whirl around, gun raised.

“Easy chop shop,” says a familiar drawl. Napoleon, hands raised placatingly, saunters towards her, as if they’ve met on the street or in a hallway. “It’s alright,” he says calmly. “It’s alright. We’re here now.” It’s not lost on Gaby that it’s the same words she uses on Illya to talk him down from one of his episodes.

Very slowly, she lowers the gun and puts the safety back on, tucks it in the waistband of her trousers. From behind them, the snarling has stopped and Gaby can hear the sound of four paws pacing.

Compared to everything else, this is what she’s most afraid to turn to. Not because she’s afraid of the wolf but because she’s afraid that everything that’s built between her and Illya will come shattering down after this moment.

But with iron in her spine and soul, she turns.

In her dreams, she somehow thought of Illya’s wolf shape as black as ink and shadows, with golden eyes like two moons. In reality, as a wolf his coat is the same color as his hair, golden blond, with a great blaze of white on his chest and his eyes—

His eyes are the same color still, that clear, pure blue, and those are the first thing she recognizes. He’s the kind of wolf that you picture from a book of fairy tales, the prince enchanted, beautiful and terrifying and wild.

Illya makes a rumbling sound deep in his chest, not quite a growl, but he doesn’t move any closer to her. His muzzle is darkened, almost crimsoned, but he stands unnaturally still. Watching her. And Gaby realizes he’s waiting for her to turn away, to recoil from him and this makes her decision.

She steps forward, extending one hand towards him and the wolf only hesitates for a second before laying his muzzle against her hand and Gaby doesn’t even care about the blood. Even as a wolf he’s taller than her, she could ride him home easily and she does. Napoleon takes the car back, wisely leaving the two of them alone for now. By the time they get back, the moon is starting to set, and she slides off his back, her feet landing without a sound.

The sky is lightening and Illya sinks to his knees, the wolf’s form already beginning to blur. Gaby watches it with a kind of loss in her heart, and he is a man again, on his knees before her, utterly naked, and it’s a little surprising to know that even after the kind of night she’d just had, she can still feel the stirring of desire it causes to see him as he is.

He is on his knees before her, looking up at her like she’s the song he hears the moon sing and for once, that’s not what she wants.  She wants him on his feet, facing her, the two of them on equal footing. 

She tugs him upright, his face in her hands. “You came,” she says, as foolish and obvious a statement as it is, and even with blood smeared on his neck, he smiles tiredly.

“Did you ever doubt?” he asks and Gaby kisses him then, copper and salt, the taste of life in her mouth. It is _thank you_ and hunger and desperation, to prove that they were still breathing, still living and together. He lifts her clear off the ground, hooking her legs over his hips and around his waist. If it weren’t the fact neither of them have had any sleep, they’re running on fumes and completely filthy, Gaby would have had him right then and there on the ground.

But it’s because of that she brings herself to pull away, lets their foreheads rest together, catching their breath. Illya’s hands, huge and calloused and warm, with the slight sensation of nails against the tender skin of her thighs, are holding her like she weighs nothing. “Inside,” she says finally, ragged and breathless. “Bath, bed. In that order.”

“Save time if we shower together,” he suggests, ever practical, even now.

“So efficient,” she mocks gently and without waiting for further words, he carries them both inside.

It’s clean and exhausted, with a tumbler of whiskey warming her belly that Gaby collapses into bed, Illya beside her, his weight and warmth a comfort and a blessing. Gaby twines around him, hands skating across warm skin and old scars, swearing to herself, _I won’t forget this, I won’t take it for granted; he is mine_ _now and forever after._  

Illya seems to have similar thoughts; he’s never put his teeth in her before, but he bites her shoulder and the soft hollow of her throat, then the underside of one breast, and the curve of her hip. Teeth marks scattered across her, a claim, a promise. “ _Moya luna,”_ he says into the heart of her, the secret places. “ _Moya luna, moya noch’.”_

Gaby guides his mouth back to hers. “ _Moy volk,”_ she tells him and it’s with those words on her lips as she drifts off to sleep, him sprawled over her.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a ~serious, literary~ quote from the Aeneid for the beginning of this chapter and then I was halfway through writing and I thought, screw it, we need some fairy tales up in here. So I could not resist the Beauty and the Beast quote. 
> 
> moya luna = "my moon"  
> moya noch' = "my night"  
> moy volk = "my wolf"
> 
> if anyone knows better translations, please do tell me! and a huge, enormous thank you for all the support, encouragement you guys have given me for this au.


	5. after love, no one is what they were before

_On the ragged edge of the world I’ll roam, and the home of the wolf shall be my home.—The Nostomaniac_ , Robert Service 

* * *

 The world turns. It always does. Napoleon, for all that he claims to be a rotten seer, slid smoothly in and out of the cracks and brought himself home, not a thread or a hair out of place. His time with the CIA is over and he’s ready to start the long game again.

Before he can though, he’s got one last loose end to tie up.

It takes some doing (and conspiring with Waverly), committing one _minor_ act of treason (it wasn’t against _his_ country anyway) and a few papers smoothly taken from the desk of a British diplomat. But he’s pretty pleased with the results. He gives the necessary documents to Waverly and goes to see about apartment listings in New York (and one in Oklahoma, the current haunt of his parents).

The open road is calling him like the moon must for Illya.

He hopes to see them again in the moments in between.

* * *

Marya Kuryakin receives a letter from her son, written in the code they developed years ago, and a visit from Oleg, her son’s superior. Marya’s hair is more white than black now, but the eyes are still the same, her son’s eyes, cool and blazing blue in a porcelain delicate face. They observe Oleg as he says through gritted teeth, “We regret to inform you that your son, Illya Nikolayevich Kuryakin was killed in action three weeks ago…”

Marya listens. Marya doesn’t flinch. It isn’t the wolf’s way to let their enemy know their emotions.

His speech done, Oleg sits back and studies Marya suspiciously. He knows Illya corresponded with his mother occasionally, and of course all of his letters read and edited for content, but the thread between the two of them was never severed, even in all the years of separation.

“You do not mourn for your son?” he finally asks.

She tilts her head to one side ever so slightly, the motion more animal than human. Age did not lessen the wolf’s blood in Marya. If anything, she grew stronger and wilder. “What should I mourn for? My son is free.”   

“Free from service to the State?” asks Oleg pointedly.

 “My son runs free now,” she says simply and rises to her feet, towering over Oleg, much to his displeasure. His wolf blood is not the only thing Illya had from his mother; he also inherited her absurd height. “I think this interview is over now, _comrade.”_ Her teeth flash briefly sharp and white in her fragile face.

Once she is alone, Marya picks up the last letter from her son. It was much like him, blunt, straight the point, and factual. The only thing that matters is the encoded message.

_Come to London._

* * *

In London, in a small flat is in the final stages of being packed up. Books with titles in German, Russian and English are being haphazardly stacked into boxes. Clothes, suits and dresses and ties are being put (not particularly neatly) in suitcases. An older woman, her white hair in a braid over one shoulder, watches with a bemused smile as her son bickers with a woman who is half his size and too impatient to do anything in an organized fashion. It takes much longer than it should, and Marya Kuryakin simply watches and smiles.

Waverly has the papers delivered the next morning. They are simple. Illya Kuryakin is now a citizen of British Columbia, due to his outstanding acts of valor and sacrifice. Gaby isn’t sure how many strings Waverly had to pull to manage it (she suspects Solo contributed) but their flight leaves in the morning.

Marya is not going with them. She decides to stay in London, at least for a time, to adjust to a new world. She has promised to come visit them during Christmas though and maybe look for a house of her own there. So there is that.

Gaby’s hands itch for metal and steel as they board the plane, mentally urging it to go faster. Illya, always so still and stoic, grips her hand very hard in his, the only outward sign of his feelings.

British Columbia is full of woods and trees and cities, places for a mechanic to make herself known, for a wolf to run free if he needs. A house is there, tucked against the Vancouver woods and coast and a garage attached to it. Waverly, of course, really did think of everything.  

The house has tall enough ceilings that Illya never knocks his head against them. An open glass sliding door faces the woods.  They have to unpack, get settled, recover from traveling across the ocean and a continent, but Illya looks to the woods with such longing that Gaby rises on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Go,” she says, softly, affectionately. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

He turns his head to kiss her properly on the lips. “Best of women,” he murmurs into her mouth. And then he turns and runs for the woods.

There start to be stories coming from Vancouver, about an unnaturally huge wolf, golden in color and that haunts the coast and the woods, always here and gone, quicker than anyone can blink.  Sometimes the stories mention that a very small figure is by the wolf’s side, even on its back.

A small, but well-known mechanic shop thrives in a quiet street. The world passes on, curtains made of iron eventually collapse and a woman comes to the little house, no bags or luggage, but wild white hair blowing free.  Two wolves start to run the coast, one golden, the other purest white.

The wolf’s people make their home where they find it, and their pack is there as well.

Their lives are quiet, maybe, but their lives are their own.   

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a huge, ridiculous, outrageous, thank you to everyone whose support and encouragement kept me writing.  
> there may be one more story in this 'verse yet, so keep your eyes peeled.

**Author's Note:**

> "volchonok"= wolf cub
> 
> title and chapter name comes from Catherynne M. Valente's _Deathless_ , a truly excellent work. I hope that eventually, I will add more to this. maybe some actual dialogue next time--who can say???


End file.
